Archive for February, 2009
Whynot Street
I’ve been in Brisbane a little over two weeks now. I’ve seen a little bit of the beautiful Sunshine Coast. I’ve been disgusted by the shallow, horrible, skyscraper laden hole that is the Gold Coast. I’ve wandered national parks, explored Brisbane town, gone over the Story Bridge, swam at a fake beach and busked with locals at Nimbin. I’ve even managed to squeeze in a visit to a gaming exhibition. All these things were interesting, nice little experiences. Each memory nicely wrapped in a neat little moment. Stored away, ready to jump out at an inappropriate time to remind me of days gone by.
None of these memories though, will fill me with as much nostalgia as those from Whynot Street. A curious name for a road, yet entirely fitting. Every moment at 38 Whynot Street, West End has been welcoming, exciting, relaxing, fulfilling, intriguing, enlightening and inspiring. I’ve met some of the most wonderful people you can imagine here. I’ve had a chance to hang out with my good friend. I’ve played heaps of guitar. I’ve read far too little of my books. I slept almost an entire day on the couch while the house partied on around me. I’ve fought with the tiny fridge, painted my contribution on the coffee table, played chicken with the temperamental hot water system and listened to the rain falling on the roof day after glorious day.
I’ll never forget the people I’ve met here. Selene, the mexican PHD student. Jamie the flighty, crazy New South Welshman. Antoine, the very cool and very relaxed French uni student. Jess, the arty, fun loving Australian who stole my shed. Julianna, Jamie’s Brazillian better half. The wonderful Frenchies. Tak, the Japanese massage student and of course, the wonderful Tegan and her fantastic, funny and intellectual boyfriend Sam.
I leave this place tomorrow, bound for Sydney on my Odyssey, but for tonight: we party, one last time.
Lamington National Park
On the penultimate (I love that word) day of having my hire car, Tegan and I visited Lamington National Park. Situated about 100km’s south of Brisbane, this world heritage listed site runs the gamut from dense tropical rainforest to sparse dry bushland. The area we had a walk around, Birra Burra, is part of a long silent volcano. Evidence of the volcanoes activity, though occurring an eon ago, can still be seen in the landscape.
Setting out early we reached Birra Burra at about 10am. Stopping at a coffee shop featuring a beautiful view of the area, Tegan grabbed a couple of guides and we planned our day over a latte. It was decided we’d do two of the shorter walks available. The first a rainforest walk, and the second a 5km hike that encompassed the other side of the hill.
The Rainforest walk was beautiful. Under the cool dark canopy we walked the tracks, taking in the immense trees and moist air. Huge strangler figs enveloped massive eucalyptus trees, vines hung everywhere. Little birds scrounged the undergrowth, making a mess and running about. The Rainforest walk was fairly short, but a good introduction to the park.
Jumping in the car we headed down the hill and started the Caves Circuit. The first thing you see on the path is a warning regarding the cliff edges. The photos don’t really capture just how steep and dangerous some of the portions of the walk were, with sheer, seemingly bottomless drops constantly present alongside the narrow, often slippery unprotected path. The view from the trek though was amazing. Looking into a valley carved over millions of years was awe inspiring. Along the walk we encountered a very relaxing waterfall, caves that were once used as protection from the elements by aborigines of the area and twisting tracks leading up the steep side of the mountain. The walk ended at the top of the mountain, leaving us to walk down the road to our car.
On the way down, feeling an itch Tegan took off her boot to find a leech gorging itself on her ankle. The little bastard did a bit of a number on her, and Tegans foot bled and felt weird for most of the drive home. It was utterly macabre.
After our visit to the National Park we headed to Burleigh Heads, south of Surfers for a packed lunch Tegan had made. We sat on the beach, eating cous cous salad and relaxing. I finally found a nice pub on the beach, something which proved non-existent at surfers, and we had a coffee before the drive home. It was a great day, and seeing the forest just made me want to adventure further north into the Daintree. One day.
After the break is a video montage of some of the photos I took during the day, with sound from the rainforest. Oh, and before you start, I know I spelt Lamington wrong in the titles. It was late, and I can’t be bothered fixing it.
Card Games – Killer
Next in my series of Card Games is “Killer”.
Killer
A fairly simple game, Killer is about investigating a murder at your party, with any of the players involved being either a Killer, Detective or Victim. The Killers aim is to kill every other player who is not the detective before the detective can determine who is the killer.
To begin, take a King and Jack out of a standard deck of cards. The King represents the detective, and the Jack the killer. Next, take a random selection of cards, being sure not to get another King or Jack from the pack. Take as many cards as there is players. If there are 6 players, you will need a King, Jack and four other cards.
Shuffle the cards and distribute one to each player. Players examine their cards and determine if they are the killer, detective or just a victim.
The Killer, or person holding the Jack must then, as subtley as possible, wink at whom they suspect to be victims. When a victim notices the wink they must say aloud “I’m dead”. The Killer aims to kill all the victims they can.
While this is going on, the player holding the King card, the Detective, is trying to determine who is the killer. They can accuse someone; but they have only one chance to do so. If they accuse an innocent person the round is over and the killer remains secret. Cards go back in the pack, are shuffled and the process starts over. The round can also end when the Killer has killed all the victims or if the detective correctly accuses someone of being the killer. Scores can be kept but most of the time the game is just played for the fun of it.
Killer a fairly easy game and very entertaining, especially when players are skilled murders.
I’ve still got a few more card games to go up, so keep watching that “card games” keyword.
Surfers Paradise
My plans for a Saturday morning trip to Surfers were waylaid by Tegan’s suggestion to head to the markets, grab coffee and visit a travel expo. This was probably for the best as the weather, as it has been since I got here, was pretty terrible. At the markets I got a french sweet crepe made by some of the Frenchies that live at WhyNot Street. We wandered the overly commercial Travel Expo only to be stung by a 13 dollar parking fee for the 15mins we were there, and then relaxed at the Three Wise Monkey’s coffee shop.
I started my mission to see the Gold Coast at about 1pm, leaving Tegan to complete her assignments over a mug-a-chino at the coffee shop. Jumping in the car I was once again on the motorway, cruising past other road users on the 70km trip South to Surfers Paradise. (On a side note: Drivers here are just as bad as Perth, however; their road rage is misplaced, and they are overly accommodating to the point of destroying the flow of traffic. The complete opposite to Perth drivers insistence in not allowing over-taking or merging.)
I drove the streets of Surfers, huge residential towers dwarfing my compact car, until I found Surfers Paradise Boulevard. I parked and walked the almost mile long strip of beach that runs almost the complete length of the city. The beach reminded me of Scarborough back in Perth, the golden sand stretching as far as I could see.
As it was still miserable weather I didn’t swim. I was longing for a nice beer and meal in a pub on the beach, but to my amazement I couldn’t find a single decent place. How an entire city can exist by the beach and not have a slew of upmarket beach fronting pubs just flabbergasted me.
I didn’t spend long in Surfers, just enough time to grab a beer and a Red Rooster burger. I did get to see the ridiculous, advertising plastered metermaids that Surfers is so famous for. The girls pimped themselves to me, offering a photo with them for a fee. I gave them one look and informed them I had a whole selection of photos of me with much hotter girls (albeit wearing more clothes) who didn’t ask me for money. They were not amused. I don’t seem to amuse many women.
I left the coast soon after that, walking through an altercation between a dickhead in a Commodore who backed into an Asian family’s Mercedes. A traffic cop was mediating, trying to keep control of a flurry of hand waving, pointing and racial slurs when the bogan fled the scene in a squeal of tires, leaving the car load of mates he had with him at the time standing by the side of the road. Yup: I’m in Queensland alright.
Nimbin
My hire car is proving to be a boon to my travel situation. On Friday, gathering a group from the house, I loaded up the little Hyundai Getz with Crystal, Julianna, Antwon, and Jamie and headed south to New South Wales. “To Nimbin” was the call from the car as we pulled onto the motorway.
As we moved south, thick, lush rain forest bushland gave way to rolling, cleared farm lands. Rain, as it has for most of my adventure, bucketed down in torrents, at one point almost forcing us to stop the car. One-way bridges were covered over by the rivers they were traversing. The wipers couldn’t move the water off the windscreen fast enough and misting windows obscured my vision. We pushed on. The rain cleared as we pulled into the infamous town of Nimbin, leaving behind a thin mist and slick streets.
Nimbin, once considered almost a Utopian town by the hippies that resided there, is a small rural community with a population of around 350 “official” residents. While Nimbin originally began life as a dairy farming town, its main drawcard now is the fairly relaxed marijuana laws that exist there. Drugs such as various varieties of pot and hash, acid and mushrooms are sold relatively openly in the street. The heady aroma of grass and incense mingles with the sweaty, “haven’t showered since Malcolm Fraser” stink of the bums and druggies that wander the main strip. Large groups of stoned tourists shamble along, bleary eyed, talking shit and browsing hemp themed souvenir stores. Aging hippies sit behind street stalls selling shiny nicknacks and new age books. If it could be tie-died, it was tie-died.
While the utopian nature of the place may have gone, the druggies have not. The “free love” ideal brought to the town by the hippies that transformed it so long ago has been lost to drunk bums and modern meth head junkies.
I wandered the main strip, stopping into the local pub where loud music played from an old CD jukebox drowned out the caller on the TAB racing screens. I found the rest of the group chatting to some aboriginals busking in the street for booze money. I picked up one of their guitars and with Antwon grabbing the bongo we busted out a few tunes on the street. One of the buskers repeatedly yelled Superman while I played, in reference to my tshirt.
My time in Nimbin was a pretty surreal. While it made me a little sad to see what could have been a nice place turned bad, it was still an experience I have now crossed off my “things to do” list.
On the way back Jamie directed us to Mount Warning the highest, most eastern part of Australia. If you wish to catch the first rays of light hitting Australia on New Years, the top of Mount Warning is the place to be. The forest was lush, helped in part by the heavy rains and the running creeks and dripping foliage were very peaceful.
We crept back into Brisbane with its twinkling lights around 7pm. Just in time for some dinner. I sat listening to the creaking and popping of the car as the engine cooled in the moist night air. I decided that I would hit Surfers Paradise the next morning.
Card Games – Chems
I’ve learnt a few new card games and I thought I would share them with y’all. Seeing as these are games, thats right GAMES Colin, they will be stuffed whole-heartedly into the “Gaming” category of the site.
Chems
Today’s card game is Chems. I am not sure of the exact pronunciation, as it’s a crazy french game. The Frenchies here assure me that “Chems/Cams/Kerms” means nothing, it’s just a word so you can substitute whatever you like. It is a team game, real time strategy of sorts, where the aim of the game is to hold four of the same card (every suit of a card), and working as a team attempt to get “DOUBLE CHEMS”, two people with full hands each, and it works like this.
The game must be played with an even number of people, with everyone broken into teams of two. Take 1 deck of cards, shuffle and distribute four cards to each player. Place the remaining deck on the table face down. Each player picks up their cards and looks at their hand. Players may want to rearrange their cards for easier sorting. Once everyone is ready, the dealer flops four cards from the top of the pack onto the table face up. Players wait for the dealer to call “Go” and a mad scramble of choosing one card from your hand and swapping it with one of the cards on the table begins. There are no turns, just all in.
Swapping continues for as long as the players like, unless 3 of the same card (ie, 3 jacks) appear on the table. At this point, or when everyone is done swapping, the dealer takes the cards on the table, turns them back over and puts them in to “burned” pile. A new lot of four cards is flopped onto the table and the process begins again. Once a player has “Chems” they must signal their partner secretly and their partner must say “Chems” or “Double-chems” if they suspect their partner has “Chems” as well. If someone has “Chems” and this noticed by an opposing team they can call “Contra-chems”. If the player is found to have “Chems” when “Contra-chems” is called the player holding the “Chems” must place their cards in the burned pile and take four new cards from the top of the pack. If the player does not have “Chems” they must show two different cards secretly to the accusing player and that player must forego their cards and take four new ones from the pack. The round is won when a team successfully calls “Chems” or “Double-chems”. A team gets one point for “Chems”, two for “Double-chems” and the game continues for as long as you want. Scoring can be replaced easily with “drinks to be distributed” for conversion into a drinking game.
The strategy lies in the relationship and signals you have with your partner. You cannot call Chems on your own cards, so it is important that your partner is always checking for your secret signal, and the signal must be subtle enough that the other players cannot detect when you have “Chems”. Counting cards comes into play where good players can see when someone on the opposing team or their own partner has picked up enough cards to be holding a full hand.
So there you go. Give it a bash, I’m sure you’ll enjoy it. It’s a great game to get to know people with and the real-time card swapping of it makes it very fun and keeps everyone on their toes.
Keep an eye on the blog for more card games to appear, they’ll appear under the “card games” keyword.
Noosa
This is what I imagined Queensland to be like. Perfect, beautiful sandy beaches. Lush, green and tropical bush. Beautiful skies and warm, clear water.
About an hour and a half north of Brisbane is the Sunshine Coast, and at the northern end of that Noosa Heads. Fairly touristy in some parts it is worth heading a little past the main beach and into the national park. Here you will find secluded, quiet and beautiful beaches with decent surf and nice shallow warm water. Watch for rips though.
I swam for about 4 hours, relaxing in the surf while Jess, one of Tegan’s friends who played navigator for my trip up the coast sunbathed and did assignments. I had a great day, capping it off with a fantastic fish burger and a visit to the Big Pineapple! Rock and Roll! I was a little disappointed in myself that I didn’t stop at Aussie Land and aussie it up something cruel, but I did get Jess to get a photo as we went past the Ettamogah Pub.
The Blonde Nightmare
I promised I would write an article about one of the very interesting people I met in Sydney: Lucy Holden. A self confessed “blonde nightmare” or “A car crash of a woman”; Lucy headed to Australia with a few dollars, a working visa and an uncontrollable desire to buy any clothes she sees.
Full of life, Lucy was the mistress of the goon, often sneaking it into bars and clubs to drink on the cheap. She missed her first day of work at a cafe because of a big night out and still managed to bluff her way into keeping the job. She stole muffins from hostels, scammed a bed pretty much every night and found coles to be a great source of free food. Even with so little money Lucy could still pull out a big night.
The last I heard from Lucy was that she was headed down to Melbourne with a few hundred bucks donated from her mum. She’ll be looking for, and eventually flagging work in Victoria just as this post goes up. Good luck Lucy, I hope the reputation you earned at the YHA doesn’t follow you to Melbourne!
Sorting Shit Out
While I got seriously screwed over in regards to my UK working visa, I have made some progress in getting my trip on the right track. Today I have an official itinerary of flights. For those interested in my movements I’ve added a page with my Itinerary. I’ll keep this page updated with flight time changes and with “where I am now”. If you check out the itinerary, and see a time when I can catch up with ya, please let me know by adding a comment to the itinerary page, or by contacting me.
In other news, I have hired a car, so I am no longer restricted by public transport or the relentless rain of Brisbane. That’s right universe, I’ve got your number. I reckon I’ll be heading to Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast and maybe Byron if I get adventurous. I have the car for the next seven days, so I’ve got plenty of time to see the sights of Queensland.
As for the picture above: On one of the only warm days of this week Tegan and Sam took me to see the Streets Beach at Southbank. I found it mind blowing that I would be swimming at a fake beach in Australia. It seemed absolutely absurd, but it’s a nice place.
UK Working Visas
Applying for an Australian Working Visa from the UK is laughably easy, according to most of the UK backpackers I’ve spoken to. I’ve heard reports of pommies applying online and being told within hours if they have had their Visa issued.
The process is not nearly as easy for Aussies headed to the UK, as I found out.
Here’s some handy hints I’ve picked up from my experience for Australians applying for a UK Working Visa.
- Expect delays
Applications take around 25 days to process apparently, but it can take longer. Don’t leave it till the last two weeks before you leave. Give a few months lead time. - You WILL have to surrender your passport
I thought this was a mistake on the website, but you will have post your passport to Canberra. I never let me passport out of my sight, and the idea of sending my passport through the absurdly unreliable AusPost completely confounded me. But, it needs to be done apparently. As I am leaving for Japan in 2 weeks I can’t give up my passport, so no Visa for me. - The cost of applying is refundable UP TO A POINT
If you choose to give up on your application do it BEFORE the consulate take your biometric details. Anytime after that and you’ve lost your money, no exceptions. This would have been handy for me to know before they took my fingerprints. - You can only get a Tier 5 Youth Mobility Visa from inside Australia
Pretty much says it all. You can’t get it issued outside your home country. Not even if you’ve started the application and its all over apart from the the shouting. - TWO WEEKS?!
You have only two weeks from starting the application to when Canberra need to receive your documention. Don’t expect that you can start it up again in a few months, or in a years time. You WILL have to pay another $280 bucks and go through all this shit again.
I hope these tips help anyone looking to apply for a UK Working VISA. They sure would have helped me! At this point I have no UK working Visa, and my Italian Citizenship is still lost in the thick forest of red-tape, slackness and bureaucracy that is the Italian Immigration System. Looks like I’ll be funding my entire trip out of savings.